CHAPTER VIII.
COURTS AND BAR OF ALLEN COUNTY
pg. 314-318

     THE first Circuit Judge who presided over the courts of northwestern Ohio subsequent to the organization of the new counties was George Tod.  Ebenezer Lane followed Judge Tod, and next came Judge David Higgins.  In 1830 he was elected President Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, then comprising all the territory in the neighborhood of Allen County.  Court was held at Findlay, Defiance and Perrysburg, at each of which places the County Coffinberry, J. C. Spink and Rudolphus Dickenson appeared as lawyers of the circuit - itinerant pleaders.
     The Legislature created the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in 1838-39, which embraced Allen, Van Wert, Hardin, Hancock, Lucas, Wood, Henry, Williams, Paulding, and Putnam.  Up to this time Allen County belonged to the Dayton Circuit, with Wm. L. Helfenstein, Judge, while a portion of Allen belonged to the Marion Circuit, presided over by Judge Ozias Bowen.
     In February, 1839, Emery D. Potter was elected Judge of this Thirteenth Circuit, a position he occupied until his election to Congress in October, 1843.  The same year Myron H. Tilden was elected Judge of the Circuit.  In February, 1845, the territory of this circuit was reduced.
     the Sixteenth Circuit was established Feb. 19, 1845.  It embraced Allen, Shelby, Mercer, Hardin, Hancock, Putnam, Paulding, Van Wert and Williams, to which Defiance County was added Mar. 10, 1845. Patrick G. Goode was elected Presiding Judge.  The Associate Judges in 1833 were William Watt, James Crozier and Chris Wood; in 1837, Charles Levering, Joseph Hover and John Jamieson; in 1841, John Elliott, George B. Shriner, and in 1845, Charles H. Adgate and John P. Fay.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.

     The first Court of Common Pleas for Allen County was held within James Daniels' cabin, near the creek, at the east end of Market Street, in May, 1833, with George B. Holt, President, assisted by Associate Judges Watt, Crozier and Wood.  President Judge Helfenstein succeeded Judge Holt in 1838; he was succeeded by Judge Potter in 1839.  Judge Tilden presided from 1842 until 1845, when Judge Goode was elected.  Under the Constitution of 1851, Allen, Hardin, Shelby, Auglaize, Madison, Union and Logan were erected in one Common Pleas Court District, known as No. 3, Sub-Division No. 1, of which Benjamin F. Metcalf was elected Judge in October, 1851.  He was succeeded in 1855-56 by Judge William Lawrence, who presided over the district, as re-organized, until 1864, when he resigned to enter Congress.
     In 1851 Mercer, Van Wert, Putnam, Paulding, Defiance, Williams, Henry and Fulton were organized as District No. 3, Sub-division No. 2, and John M. Palmer elected Judge in October, 1851.  He was succeeded in 1855-56 by Alex S. Latty.  Under the act of Apr. 8, 1858, this sub-division was re-organized, and Allen, Auglaize, Mercer, Van Wert and Putnam made an additional sub-division, of which Benjamin F. Metcalf was elected Judge in October, 1858, re-elected in October, 1863, and occupied the position until his death in February, 1865, when O. W. Rose was appointed to fill the vacancy.  In October, 1865, James Mackenzie, a Canadian, son of William Lyon Mackenzie, the Canadian Patriot leader of 1837, was elected to the Judgeship of Common Pleas, for the unexpired term, and re-elected in October, 1868.  In March, 1869,  Edwin M. Phelps was elected under the act creating an additional judgeship for sub-division.  A reference to the political history will point out the Judges elected since that time, as well as these elected in 1884 under the law establishing the Circuit Court.

MEMBERS OF THE OLD BAR.

     Andrew Coffinberry, born in Virginia Aug. 20, 1788, where his French and German grand-parents settled in 1750, moved with parents to Ohio in 1806.  He served two years under Bainbridge and Hull, again with his father in the war of 1812.  From 1815 to 1836 he studied law and practiced at Mansfield, Ohio; moved to Perrysburg in 1836.  From 1831 to the period of his death at Findlay, May 12, 1856, he was known as the pioneer lawyer of northwestern Ohio.  John C. Spink, another pioneer lawyer, resided at Wooster.  He was one of the jokers of the circuit, and the violinist of the Northwest.  W. V. Way, of Perrysburg, was another early visitor.  James G. Haley, an Irishman, was considered one of the ablest men on the northern circuit.  Sarcasm he tempered with wit, and treacherous legal cases he surrounded with logic and strategy.  James Purdy, of Mansfield, was the opposite of Spink; he never looked on the mimicry and antics of the latter with approbation, yet was a sincere friend of the funnyman of the circuit.  James Coffinberry, son of Andrew Coffinberry, was born at Mansfield, Ohio, in 1818, studied law in his father's office at Perrysburg, in 1841 joined his father in the law at Maumee City, moved to Hancock County in 1845, to Cleveland in 1855, elected Judge of Common Pleas in 1861, was editor of the Findlay Herald in 1845, and one of the early lawyers of Allen and neighboring counties.  Jude Hall was an unobtrusive merry-maker.  In court he was sedate, and out of court he would embark in any enterprise which Spink might suggest.  Judge Potter was a vocal god of the old bar.  Such songs as "Lord Lovell" and "Rosin the Bow" were his favorite melodies.  J. M. May was the trombone-player of the old bar, accompanying Spink on the violin, and Coffinberry on the trombone.  The pair just mentioned exercised a peculiar influence on May, which sometimes led im to be as mischievous as themselves.  To the bar of the northwestern circuit Thomas W. Ewing was added about 1831 - a lawyer as upright as he was eminent.  David A. Colerick moved from Lancaster, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1829, and here met the pioneer lawyer of northeastern Indiana - Henry Cooper.  Charles Johnson, admitted at Fort Wayne i 1834, died in 1845, after returning from Bluffton, Ohio.  Lucien P. Ferry, a contemporary of Johnson, was admitted in 1834 or 1835, visited Bluffton in 1845, and died on his return to Fort Wayne.  John H. Morrison, Judge Ewing, Judge Price, William H. West, Judge Walden, Lawyer Coombs, Judge John Morris, Henry Reed, H. L. Hosmer, E. allen, Henry Bennett, S. B. Campbell, Judge Tilden, Gen. Hill, Moses B. Corwin, John A. Corwin, Jacob S. Conklin, Joseph S. Updegraff, John McSweeney, all came to practice in the courts of Allen County or preside over them.

ROLL OF LAWYERS 1831 - 1884.

     The foregoing list, together with the names given in the roster of the old bar, embraces the names of almost all, if not all, the lawyers who practiced in the courts of Allen County up to 1885.

- END OF CHAPTER VIII -